Shadow of Dragons
by Gabion
Summary: Fifty turns after the Eighth Pass, no more Thread, and only one Weyr.  So why does the madman in the abandoned Weyr insist they will be back?
1. Chapter 1

"You be careful, running up them slopes," Danvik said sharply to his daughter as she passed him with a forage basket, ducking past him as he stood in the open door of the hold.

"Yes sir."

"Don't forget we had a lot of rain, the slope will be slippery."

"I'll mind."

"And mind out for the madman!"

"Yes sir."

Andoya spoke mechanically as she drew a couple of deep breaths, adjusting her eyesight to the sunshine. The air might be cold, but it was better than the cloying atmosphere in the hold with its fitful light from glows and tallow dips.

Fifty years since Thread had last fallen, the Red Star was beginning to recede from the daytime sky, and still her father shuttered and locked every single window and door at night in his hall.

He also posted lookouts; Andoya waved to Vikna and had his acknowledgement before she turned to the path up to the higher levels of the abandoned Weyr. Abandoned for fifty years, and the local holders had systematically robbed out anything of value left after its abandonment. In truth, there was not much in the hold to show for it, a few pottery bowls and basins perhaps, some bone and horn spoons, but that was all that had been left.

Andoya shook her head at the long mystery of the abandoned Weyrs. Most Lord Holders would have it that the dragons and their riders had voluntarily committed suicide by going _between_ rather than be a drain on Pern's resources. Neither Andoya nor the old auntie Smola who was her particular charge believed that.

"Gone ahead, gone between," auntie Smola would sing in her reedy voice that had been so notable in her youth they had wanted her to train at Harper Hall. "You remember the teaching songs, dearie, and teach them to your own."

Andoya always dutifully agreed to that, and sometimes managed a smile, even though the remembrance of having been jilted still rankled a full year after that perfidious runner had seduced her and left her, thankfully without a child to rear fatherless.

Reaching the higher slopes, Andoya paused to draw breath and look around. The wind was keen, blowing from the north and the far icy wastes. The sky was blue, however, with just one bank of low dark cloud, and the sun was shining, to make it a lovely day after the two days of rain and cold they had endured in the dank depths of the hold.

The berry bushes would be full this year, Andoya thought contentedly, and they would be able to make as much bubbly-pie filling as ever. Two years ago they had had a dreadful summer with rain and wind and hardly any sunshine, and they had gone hungry that winter. Never mind that Danvik could have sent a boy down to his nearest neighbours and asked for help, his youngest daughter knew he would never do that.

Andoya paused on the next shelf of land and began picking greens in their sheltered corners between the tumble of rocks. These big blocks of stone, covered with moss now, beginning to be unrecognisable, must once have been buildings, she always thought, buildings that had once hugged the road up to the Weyr, once been full of people coming and going to that place. Bees hummed and buzzed up here, and she could look down across the lower shelf of land where her father had established his small hold fifty years ago.

Andoya frowned at the stray thought that crossed her mind; fifty years was a significant anniversary here on Pern. Fifty years ago the last threat of Thread had finally gone, and the Eighth Pass was officially declared closed. This Interval would last another two hundred years and she would not be alive to see Thread. Was that good or bad, she argued to herself. Generations of Pernese never encountered Thread; they lived and died in the Intervals and never knew of their great enemy except from the teaching ballads and the songs of praise to the Dragonmen.

"Dragons must fly, when Thread is in the sky," Andoya sang to herself as she cut expertly, not stripping any plant, but leaving enough for it to regrow.

"They'll be back soon, like a snow shower in summer, and gone as quickly," a harsh voice said, and Andoya leaped around, nearly cutting herself.


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry, I forgot the disclaimer for this! Pern is the world of Anne McCaffery, but we like to play on the edges. Thank you ma'am.

Thanks for the reminders, GinnyStar. Yes, turns for years - I always forget that, and no bees. Bother! I like bees in my stories!

The madman stood at a little distance, a couple of game birds dangling from his hand, his bow, thankfully unstrung, in the other, the fletchings of his arrows showing from the quiver slung behind his shoulder. Andoya took a couple of steps back into the rocks, but he did not seem inclined to leap on her or attack her.

"Come back?" she asked at random. "They can't come back - they've gone _between_. A lot of holders would've liked all of them to go."

"Dragons are linked to Pern."

Andoya wondered suddenly why she was talking to this madman. He lived up here, possibly in the abandoned Weyr itself, hunting game, and making his own clothes and weapons. Andoya looked more carefully at his weapons, but he only had a belt knife as she did. She remembered hers was unsheathed and felt a little safer. If he rushed her, her mind said busily, she would stick out her foot - so - and he would tumble over it and roll down the slope.

"You wouldn't manage it," the madman said unexpectedly. "Did you know every emotion and thought shows on your face?"

"No it doesn't! No one knows what anyone else thinks - unless they're dragon-bound and can hear that way."

"Not every rider can hear other dragons."

"Is that true? The Ballad of Moreta's Ride - "

He shrugged. "Oh - her. Yes, she could hear every dragon, and there's probably a few in every generation can do so. What're you picking on my mountain?"

"It is not your mountain! This is Weyr ground - and since they've gone - unless it belongs to Benden Weyr - it's all open land."

"You do fire up nicely, don't you? Did they warn you about me, those ugly little brutes in that hold down there?"

"That's my family hold, and I'll thank you to speak civilly about it."

He leaned on his bow stave, watching her, and Andoya thought angrily that she should have turned and fled at once.

"They turn strangers away, don't they? They've turned me away, and they spurn their neighbours."

Andoya drew a breath to defend her family, and found she could not. She had a loyal duty to them, and deferred to her parents, but the rest of the brawling squabbling mob should be run off.

"There's a lot to do, to hold," she said at last, turning to go.

"Yes, and a lot of new things to do," he said scornfully. "Do they do it? No, they stick to the old ways. Over yonder, in the next valley, they've got more sense. They're expanding their holding, they're breeding new flocks."

"And do they remember their obligations to Hold and Weyr? Do they keep the teaching ballads?" Andoya asked, annoyed with him all over again.

"I don't know that. They've a notable few voices, I know that, I go and listen to them singing. Do you sing? Your voice says you can."

"Only Harpers sing," Andoya replied at once, the standard response.

"Only Harpers are _trained_ to sing. Anyone can sing - they open their mouth and the sound comes out. They're holding a gather over there in a sevenday or two. Perhaps I'll see you there, with your thoughts showing all over your face!"

And he laughed and bounded past her before she could move, leaping up the barely discernible blocks and tumbled walls, disappearing like a dragon gone between, it seemed, and Andoya was left with the conflicting desire to shout angrily at him that she did not show her emotions, and in equal measure, to ask him to stay talking to her, mad or not, because he did at least treat her like a person and not a non-thing who had disgraced and disappointed her family.


	3. Chapter 3

The usual disclaimer, alas, Pern was not founded by me! I just like playing. I hope these characters don't sound or act too much like Menolly and her original family.

Andoya, tucked away in one of the store rooms, looked up from folding sheets to find Vikna standing in the doorway watching her.

"Can I help you, Vikna?"

"What was you and the madman talking about, t'other day?"

Andoya could feel herself flushing.

"You an' him, standing up there on the shelf. Talking, was you?"

"Passing the time of day, and our opinions on dragons, yes," Andoya replied sarcastically.

Vikna nodded. "I didn't tell himself."

"Why not?" Andoya held out an end of the sheet, and the watchman automatically took it and stared at it as if he had never seen a sheet before.

"Give it a shake and a stretch," Andoya told him. "Edges together. Why didn't you tell my father?"

"Reckoned he'd give you grief. Nice smell! What'd you use?"

"I found a flower growing up on those shelves, and put it in the washing water. I strew it in the drawers as well."

Vikna walked towards her with the edges of the sheet, she took them and folded them expertly, not looking at him.

"You're still the prettiest gal he ever fathered," Vikna said unexpectedly. "Don't reckon many of them lil crawlies ever tell you that?"

Andoya blinked at him in surprise.

"No, no one says that, Vikna. Thank you. Do you see him often? The madman, I mean?"

Vikna shrugged as he helped her fold the rest of the sheets and lay them away in the chests.

"I sees him sometimes, hunting."

"How long has he been up there?"

"Dunno as anyone rightly knows. My da says he saw him a long time ago - maybe twenty five turns?"

Andoya frowned as she thought about that.

"But he must go to places? Cotholds? To trade - furs perhaps?"

"Good thought," Vikna said approvingly. "Yeh, he might trade over to the next valley."

"He said there's a gather there in a sevenday."

"Yeh. You wanna go?"

Andoya stared at him in astonishment.

"Me? I won't be allowed to go there, Vikna!"

"You could, iffn you was s'pposed t'be with me."

Andoya could not help herself. She took a physical step backwards, overbalanced and sat down heavily on the chest behind her, clutching the clean sheets like a shield over her body. Vikna made a sound between a snarl and a growl, turned and left the room, stamping down the corridor as Andoya tried to stop herself trembling and shaking, tried to stop herself breaking down into tears.

She looked up with a startled frightened gasp as someone else whisked in through the doorway.

"What's the matter?" her mother asked sharply. "What have you been doing, daughter?"

"N - nothing. It was nothing."

She stood up with an effort of will and turned to put the last of the sheets away, smoothing them with a shaking hand, feeling her rough skin catching on the old threads.

"Giving someone else the come-on?" her mother asked unpleasantly. "You can stop thinking you'll ever court with anyone, or wed them, my girl!"

"I wasn't thinking that," Andoya said, edging past her mother. "Is auntie Smola awake? I'll go and sit with her - I've a basket of mending to do."

"Go and get on with it, then, it won't do itself!"

Andoya wanted to shout that if her elder sisters, each courting, bothered to do their fair share, there would be less mending and cleaning and everlasting laundry to do, but she did not say anything as she hurried away to the safety of the old lady's room.

It was stuffy and cold in here, and she busied herself with opening a window and poking the fire to try and bring some warmth into the room. Smola watched her, huddled up on the bed with a blanket around her shoulders.

"Thirsty," she said querulously. "I rang and rang, and no one came."

"Sorry, auntie, I was folding the laundry."

Andoya rescued the horn cup from the floor, found the water jug empty and hurried to the kitchen to refill it, and beg a little morsel of food for Smola.

"Here, this is spoiled for the dinner table," the cook said, sweeping a pastry and a soft roll and butter into a napkin. "Goodness me, girl, take it! I rule in here!"

Andoya thanked her profusely and hurried back to Smola's room. The air smelt fresh again, and she closed and latched the window, thankful it was not in a place her father would have seen it open. Andoya often wondered why all the windows had catches on them, when he would never allow them to be opened.

"Here we are, auntie, Hitra the cook gave you these nice things to eat."

"Hitra? Alsten is the cook here in the hold. Who's Hitra?"

Andoya sighed to herself. Today was going from bad to worse, with auntie Smola's mind wandering to the past.

"Hitra is helping out, auntie. Did Alsten cook well?"

"She was the best cook we ever had. I was sorry to see her go to the Weyr."

Andoya drew a slow breath.

"When did she go to the Weyr, auntie?"

"Just before the Thread stopped falling. They lost some people to fever, and sent out for replacements. She went there and never came back."

"Perhaps she went to another hold, when the dragons and their riders vanished?"

The old lady shook her head as she chewed on the soft bread roll.

"Never came back. None of them came back. I went to look, when the men collected the herdbeats that had been set free, and there wasn't anything left up there. Nothing was left behind, not the people, not the belongings."

She fell silent, drinking thirstily, and then slipped into a doze. Andoya put the remains of the roll and pastry on her plate and wrapped it carefully in the napkin for later, and went to sit where the light from the window would light her work.

The mending basket was always full, and she threaded a needle and picked up a pair of boy's trous, and matched a button from her stock.

"Gone away, gone ahead," she murmured. Did everyone go? If anyone was left, wouldn't they have told of it? And if they had arranged a rendezvous in some other part of Pern, wouldn't the Benden dragons know? Every dragon could communicate with its own kind, so they said.

Andoya sighed, looking out of the window at the fine day, the clouds scudding, faintly hearing the herdbeasts in the fields, and then bent her head to the sewing again. Putting everything out of her head was safer than speculating and wondering on things long gone, and especially safer than wondering why Vikna had made that extraordinary offer, why he should have said that. She had known him all her life, like the other men in the hold, and thought nothing more of him than that he was a watcher and a guard.

"Probably wanted to get in those sheets with you, girl," she muttered, snipping her thread and smoothing out the work, folding it away, selecting another piece. "And maybe many another girl has fallen into the sheets with him, and are you going to be an easy victim again?"


	4. Chapter 4

Once again, AM has built the building, we are just busily decorating and putting in a bit of extra mortar here and there between the bricks!

Andoya was not the only person to be startled at the dinner table that night, when her father announced they would be going to attend the gather in the next valley. Her mother looked as if she wanted to speak, but only tightened her lips, but there was unaffected delight from everyone else.

"They'll be thinking of things to sell," Senja said with a nod as she shared a sweet pastry with Andoya. "What d'you have to sell?"

Andoya stared at her friend in puzzlement. Senja was a cousin of some sort, and had come three years ago when she had been orphaned. The two girls shared a room, and had come to an ease of friendship by now.

"To sell? Why - why nothing - what d'you have?"

Senja shrugged. "I've some cloth pieces, that's all. What about those pretty little embroidered baby caps you make?"

"They aren't passed by a Crafthall," Andoya said doubtfully.

"A Crafthall! Whoever said anything about Crafted goods? This is to sell in an open market, not some closed-in rigid system like the Crafthalls."

"You shouldn't talk about Crafts like that!"

"Why not? Not everyone gets to a Crafthall, but that doesn't mean we can't have skill."

Andoya thought about the madman saying Harpers were trained to sing, but that anyone could open their mouths and make a sound. Was that true, she wondered, and took another sip of the small ale Senja helped to brew.

"Yes, I could take them, if I'm allowed to go."

"Whyever wouldn't you be allowed? Oh! Because of - him? But Ana, that's over a turn in the past! Goodness, you don't act the flirt with anyone, far from it!"

Andoya shrugged and did not answer, and Senja turned to speak to someone else as they calculated how much money they had, what they would wear. Andoya did not think she would be going, because someone had to stay to look after the old aunties and uncles of the older generations in the hold.

"Your father's beckoning you," Senja said after a while, and Andoya looked up the table. People had broken up their usual seating, were moving around talking.

"You called me, father?" Andoya asked dutifully.

"Yes. Vikna has said he's willing to play escort with Kvaloy to the gather. You'll go in the wagon with the other girls. Do you have anything to sell?"

"Some - some embroidery - am I really allowed to go, father?"

He frowned up at her anxious face.

"Of course you will be going!"

"Auntie Smola - "

"Your sister Soroya is too far advanced in pregnancy to go," he said brutally. "She can stay to look after the aunties. "Well? Will you accept Vikna's escort?"

"So long as he is escorting all the unmarried girls, yes, father," she said at once, and he stared hard at her, then across at his guards who were lounging at a table, playing dice and drinking.

"Well said, daughter," Danvik said. "Be sure to put a blue ribbon in your hair - blue suits you."

"Yes father."

She retreated, totally bemused. Danvik was a hard taskmaster to all, but especially to his large brood of children, four sons and six daughters out of two wives. The eldest son and daughter, out of his first wife, lived in their own houses in the valley, married with children, but were expected to come and dine at least once every sevenday at the hold hall. They were seated over there, laughing and talking with some of the younger aunties.

"Well?" Senja asked, as she pounced on her friend.

"He says I'm to go - and wear a blue ribbon in my hair."

Senja looked at her friend's brown hair, as usual pulled back into a tight bun enclosed in a black knitted snood.

"We'll have to see about that," Senja said darkly. "And look at your dresses! You've lost so much weight over the last year - "

"Are you saying I was fat?" Andoya smiled at her friend who laughed in delight, causing several men to look round at the pair, so unalike in colouring.

"Come on! Let's go and look out your dresses right away, in case they need a lot of altering!"

"I just need to see if there's some little treat for auntie."

Senja caught up the half full jug of small ale, winking.

"She'll like a little drop of this, I know that! There's some roots there, and a jug of gravy. She won't mind those, she can eat them the more easily! Come on!"

Andoya gathered up the food and followed her imperious friend. Vikna rose from his seat near the doorway.

"He's given you permit?"

"Yes, Vikna, I'm to go with the other unmarried girls. Thank you, and Kvaloy, for offering escort."

Vikna scowled at her.

"'Twasn't what I wanted! I wanted t'give you sole escort!"

"I know you did." She stared levelly at him. "I'm not ready to accept any man's sole escort, Vikna."

"Spoilt you, did he, that stupid fool?"

Andoya could feel the heat rising in her face, and Vikna shrugged heavily.

"He wouldn't have got away whole if I'd found him out, girl, I tell you that. Be pleased to be part of the escort."

"Thank you Vikna."

She slipped past him and hurried after Senja who glanced back into the hall.

"He frightens me," she admitted. "He watches all the girls, and they do say he tumbles anyone who gives him the signal."

"Well, I don't think I'm in any danger of that," Andoya said with a sigh.

"You don't still think of him, do you?" Senja asked curiously as they went into auntie Smola's room, to give her the food, still hot, and a goblet of small ale which she enjoyed immensely. Senja went to fetch a couple of Andoya's dresses, and Smola watched them measuring and marking.

"Going somewhere nice?"

"There's a gather next week."

"A gather! I likes a nice gather! Where is it held? Who's going?"

The small ale had made her garrulous, and the girls listened to a litany of names they did not know as the old lady talked of her youth.

"And B'den," she said suddenly. "Oh, he was a fine one! And his dragon - so pale a bronze he was almost golden in the sunshine."

Both girls stared at her in amazement.

"You knew a dragonrider, auntie?"

"Course I did! Living here, herding the beasts for them, they'd come round and make merry with us, dancing in the hall. Ah, B'den, now there was a man!"

Her voice mumbled off into a half snore, and the girls hurried to settle her pillows, make her comfortable, before going back to their own room to continue to alter the dresses.

"Who would have thought it," Senja murmured. "A dragonrider!"

"But she must have been a young woman when Thread finally finished," Andoya pointed out. "She's nearly the oldest person in the hold, after all. I suppose - wherever B'den went - and Alsten the cook."

"The cook? The dragonriders vanished, not the cooks!"

"And did anyone come home from the Weyrs to tell where the dragonriders went?" Andoya asked. "Herdbeasts released to wander, furniture and heavy things left, but no personal possessions, nothing at all of the Weyr records. Whatever happened, Senja, they were all in it together."

And next week, she thought, I might just ask the madman what he thinks happened.


	5. Chapter 5

Pern is the copyright of Anne McCaffrey, but these characters are my own, and I hope you enjoy their adventures!

The wagons jolted over the rough road across Danvik's valley, skirting the grain fields, through the pass and over into the next valley. The mountainous aspect of the Weyr changed subtly, showing a softer face, with more greenery, small trees and bushes growing in amongst the courses of tumbled stones. From here it was possible to see the arrangement of the Star Stones; only fifty years after the end of the Pass the Red Star could still be sighted using them, so it was said.

As they travelled further towards the modest hall building, Andoya and her friends had plenty of time to see how this valley differed from their own. There were more trees, a whole wood of them, obviously carefully managed and coppiced, and the fields were built up with stone walls, stones that must have come from the ruined and broken Weyr buildings. Within the fields the depth of soil was impressive. Andoya calculated the crops must be at least as high as the stone walls, a vast improvement on their own grain crops. In other fields the animals grazed without any of the stone shelters her father insisted upon. They grazed in the open on luxurious green grass.

"Come on Andoya, come on, give us a song," some of the girls begged. Andoya looked around at them and obligingly broke into one of the ballads that circulated amongst the holds. This was not a teaching ballad, but only a simple love song with a catchy chorus and the girls perched on the sacks and boxes of produce joined in, some of them tapping the time on the side of the wagon with their bare hands. Andoya glanced back towards their escort and Vikna was riding one of the hold's runner beasts, his eyes constantly going from side to side. What did expect to see, Andoya wondered. Was he expecting to see bandits in this open place, or perhaps someone coming to intercept them, or even perhaps the madman he claimed to observe running wild around the abandoned Weyr.

"This is a prosperous place," Elverum said approvingly. "Look at the out-buildings, how they've grown around the yards. These are good ideas, we can take them home with us."

"Maybe in your place," Andoya said to her sister by marriage. "Not in father's place."

Elverum glanced at her. "Why not? Surely he is not afraid of Thread now?"

Andoya shrugged. "I don't know what he fears, sister, and that's the truth. But he sticks to the old ways. In your place, perhaps, those open barns would be acceptable."

"But even here, there is no green in the yards," Senja pointed out. "The roofs are good stone, and there are shutters on every window."

"That sort of fear would take more than a generation to fade," Elverum agreed.

They reached the open gather ground and the escorting guards came and helped the girls down from the wagon. If Vikna held Andoya's hand a little too long she merely smiled at him and withdrew it, and he walked away with the other men to tether the beasts and oversee the unloading of the wagons.

Andoya and her friends joined with the young men and came into the gather ground. There were at least a dozen stalls laid out, with bright flags flying, and each stall seemed to be heaped with produce.

"Our little things will never sell here," Andoya said in dismay. I don't know why we've brought them at all."

"Don't be such a pessimist," Senja said. "Look over there, they're setting out our stall. Come along, let's go and put our things on them and write down what we want as payment."

"Write it down?" Andoya asked. "You know father doesn't like us to do anything like that. He can read and write but few of the rest of us can."

Senja swung round and put her hands on her hips, glaring at Andoya. "And you are going to tell me you can't read and write as well as the rest of us? You were not the one sitting there in the Harper's classes, when we had them, faithfully scribing down all those ballad words, were you? Don't give me that, Andoya, come and get a fair price."

Andoya allowed herself to be led to the stall, and to set out her little embroidered caps on a lace cloth Auntie Smola had found for her and insisted she use, saying that the pretty things could not be left on the bare wood of a counter stall. Andoya laid out the caps and told the stallholder how much she would like them to be sold for, and already people were drifting over.

"It's because we're new come," the stallholder said comfortably. "Everyone likes to see something new. Off you go, girls, and have a look around you for yourselves, and then come back here to give me a hand."

The two girls found escorts for themselves, Andoya's eldest half brother Bryne coming over with a smile for them.

"Hello Andoya! I don't see you as much as I should. You must come over to our house and spend a little time with me and the children, and get to know them properly."

She smiled gratefully at him. Bryne had been one of the ones who had argued her case a year ago, who had said it had not been her fault, although he had been overruled by her mother. Andoya suddenly remembered her father had not said anything really very much about it one way or the other, but Bryne had managed to make sure she remained in her own home and was not cast off. Andoya did not know if her mother would do such a dreadful thing, to make anyone holdless even in these days without Thread, but she was grateful she had not had to experience such a thing.

They walked along the row of stalls, commenting on the goods there, on the size of the summer vegetables and fruit, on the rich dyed cloth, the many craft goods. They might not have been stamped from a Crafthall, but Andoya knew that in these far valleys away from such centres of excellence, everyone was entitled to try and sell what they could.

"So there you are, little maid with the open face."

Andoya turned and saw the madman watching her. The man by his side must be either a brother or a cousin, they looked very alike, and they were both well dressed.

"I didn't know that you knew anyone in this valley, Andoya ," Bryne said, suspicion coming into his eyes.

"She only knows me because she met me up in the abandoned places when she was picking greens for the family," he said negligently. Andoya glared at him because that would not help her case at all, that she was allowed out without supervised escort, and he grinned at her. Her brother frowned a little, as if to utter censure, and then shrugged.

"In these more relaxed days, then I suppose if you can find good hunting up there you're entitled."

"Thank you," the madman said ironically. "I'm as entitled as any to be up there in those abandoned lands. They belong not to any of us smallholders down here, nor even to the Lord Holder in his far away place. They are in a sense, common land."

"Common land? That's a very strange concept. Are you saying there're places on Pern that are held in common by all?"

The madman nodded seriously. "In a sense all of this land is common," he said. "Do not forget when men first landed on Pern the idea was to hold all in common. It was only when Thread came, with such dangers, we had to separate ourselves out and specialise in the crafts, and bring on all the dragons to protect us."

Andoya could see that answer pleased neither her brother nor indeed many of the men around, but the madman and his brother or cousin merely walked away from any confrontation.

Andoya found a few things to buy, and then she and Senja found the bubbly pie stall and bought a couple of pies, mostly to assure themselves, as they said, of their own superior quality of bubbly pies as cooked in their hold.

"Was that the madman Vikna was talking about?" Senja asked. Andoya nodded, her mouth full of pie. They walked on and found Vikna and his fellow escort men setting up butts for archery practice, with the other guards who had come from other valleys. They looked around at the girls, with a couple of laughs and comments, and Andoya held out the last of the pies she had bought.

"This is for you, Vikna, for escorting us," she said.

"Thanks, girl," he said and bit into it, rolled the fruit around his mouth and shook his head. "Not a patch on the ones we make, of course. But maybe I should buy some more later, in order to prove that this is not just a one off, a bad one out of the batch?"

Andoya exchanged some more cautious banter with him, and then moved on with Senja to where the valley Harper and some of his friends had gathered. Like Auntie Smola, Andoya loved music and she watched the Harper tuning his guitar. He wore a journeyman's knot of blue on his shoulder, and wore serviceable clothing, but she noticed he wore a finally chased leather belt with a good metal buckle and that his boots were well polished and the heels not worn down. He seemed to see her glance, and looked up with a smile.

"Hello! You're not from this valley, I can tell that. Have you come just for the gather?"

"Yes, we've come over from the hold in the next valley. Danvik is my father, and has held his holding since the end of the last pass, from his father."

The Harper nodded. "From the end of the last pass to now is fifty years. It seems an age to us before the next one arrives, but we must keep up the teaching ballads because time has a habit of flying past us, and then suddenly it will arrive and we may be unprepared."

"But Benden Weyr has all the knowledge of the dragon folk, and they'll know and warn us when the next pass arrives."

The Harper ran his fingers over the strings of his guitar, making several small discordant chords.

"Gone away, gone ahead," he sang softly. "Let us hope that when the time comes, girl from the next valley, there will be plenty of dragons to burn the Thread."


	6. Chapter 6

Pern and the dragonriders (so far non-appearing) are the property of Anne McCaffery, but we can all play with the minor characters. And I have put up a sticky on my monitor to remind me "turns=years"!

Andoya went back to the stall with food and drink, and took her place, noticing most of her embroidery work had sold. She was busy answering questions about their valley, and then suddenly the madman was standing in front of her.

"Good day to you," he said casually. "This is my cousin Rostoya, come to look at your work."

"Good day," she murmured, wondering why he did not introduce himself. Perhaps he thought she had already asked his name, she thought crossly. She sold a few items to Rostoya and they were strolling away.

"He likes you," someone observed, someone who obviously knew the two men.

"Who? Rostoya?"

"Rostoya? No, he's a married man. I mean Kvaloy, his cousin, who's as daft as all get-out. He loves a Gather, and you'll hear him singing later, but for all his money and family, he don't seem to settle to anything."

Andoya nodded politely, and sold some more items, and then most people were drifting away to the music stage, and she folded things away and marked the money taken, folding the purse closed, looking around for Rissa who had organised the selling side of the Gather. Not seeing her, Andoya sat down beside the stall to wait, content to watch the people moving around. There was money in this valley, she thought, a lot more than in their own, but she could not understand where it was coming from. They were a long way from the Lord's Holding and Hall, the Weyr no longer existed for the valley folk to trade to, yet everyone seemed to be wearing good clothing, and more especially good sound shoes and boots. Sitting there in the corner by the stalls she could hear snatches of conversation also, mostly about the harvests to come, speculation on who was courting whom, all the same kind of gossip she heard in her own valley but somehow it seemed more exotic and exciting in a strange place.

"There you are Andoya! Thanks for waiting! My word, they can talk a body into the ground in this valley, anyone would think they'd never met a stranger before!"

Rissa came around the edge of the stall and took the money bag and the last few unsold items.

"Byrne says we're staying the night," she added. "He's arranging for it now, so we don't have to rush away tonight like I feared."

"What will father say? Will he know?"

Rissa shrugged. "We'll let the men sort that one out, m'dear, we'll just enjoy! Come along now, with that pretty gather dress and blue ribbon, you'll be dancing the night away!"

Andoya allowed Rissa to lead her into the gather, to the food tables, to join with Senja who looked flushed and excited.

"Did you hear about the madman Kvaloy?" Senja asked.

"No, but I expect you did!"

Senja laughed in delight.

"Of course I did! I found out about him. His father is a very rich man, so they say, from trading and selling, and Kvaloy has been away from the valley for a few Turns, seeking out new markets. They say he's been as far as Benden Weyr, might even have spoken to the dragon riders there."

"That's a long away from here," Andoya said as she cleaned her hands. "Vikna says he's seen him up on the ruined Weyr a lot."

"Oh yes, he lives up there."

Andoya stared blankly at her. "Lives up there? How can he do that?"

"Silly! The weyrs are still there, and if you've got water and firewood, I expect you can live quite well. It explains why no girl is interested in him, of course. I mean, would you exchange a nice room in the hold for a damp and musty cave?"

"It wouldn't be musty, with all the fresh air blowing in," Andoya said absently.

"Picky picky! Come and dance!"

Andoya let herself be taken to the dancing floor. She loved to dance, but as she surveyed the young men looking hopefully for a partner, she wondered if in fact she could let herself go in the dance anymore.

"My dance, girl," someone growled, and Vikna was standing in front of her, holding out his hand. She put her own into it, and found to her surprise he was an excellent dancer, light on his feet, moving with grace around the floor. He grinned down at her.

"There! Didn't know I could dance, did ye, girl?"

"You dance well."

"Aye, that's m'mother's blood coming out. She was a notable dancer. Now look here, girl, that runner you was mixed up with - seems he comes to this valley sometimes. Want I should break his good looks for him?"

Andoya stared at him in astonishment.

"Break - Vikna! He's nothing to me, anymore! I try not to think of him - what if he came seeking redress from father?"

"Reckon I could still deal with 'im under yer father's nose as well," Vikna said aggressively, and Andoya put a hand on his arm.

"Thank you, Vikna, but the best way is to ignore him."

He grunted, and surrendered her to another dancer, and later Kvaloy took her hand in the dance.

"Have they told you all about me?" he asked with a grin.

"I have heard things, yes," she replied. "None of which is to do with me."

He laughed, and when at last the gather had tapered away to a few older men sharing a wineskin, all the stalls put away, the guards running a patrol, Andoya and Senja climbed into a shared bed.

"Oof! All that dancing! My legs ache. Did you enjoy it, Ana?"

"Yes, I enjoyed it."

"You certainly had enough admirers! What was the Harper talking about, with you?"

"Oh - those variations on the ballads Auntie Smola taught me."

"Did he forbid them?"

"No, he said he'd come over and write them down. He says maybe father would like a new journeyman Harper in the valley. I told him Porsgrunn broke his leg and had to go away."

"I don't know - Uncle Danvik might not like the expense, if this Harper can come over and teach. Couldn't one Harper run both valleys?"

"It isn't just this one and ours, though. There're four valleys spread out from the Weyr, like fingers, so Kvaloy said. Even with a runner beast, it'd be a long stretch for one man to manage."

"Did he say any more about the Weyr?"

"I didn't ask him," Andoya admitted. "There didn't seem any reason to mention it. Everyone was careful to tell me he's rich and well connected, though."

"Yes, I noticed that as well, as if they're trying to sell him with all his faults."

Andoya settled the blankets over them, laughing a little.

"Selling him at the gather! I thought it was only girls who were sold by their families!"

Senja sat up abruptly, staring down at her friend.

"What? Who said that? Who's going to be sold?"

"Oh, Senja, think about it! Doesn't the girl have to have a dowry for a good marriage? What's that if it's not a sale? That thing Kvaloy said about the common land, and the early days of Pern - there's stuff like that buried in the oldest ballads, but hardly anyone sings them any more, it's all the new stuff that's been written since the end of the Pass."

"We all have to learn our teaching ballads."

"Yes, and so we do, but it's harder to teach the youngsters without a proper Harper. Maybe father will have a Harper again. That would be nice."

Senja lay down again.

"I don't have a dowry," she said in a small voice. "There wasn't anything left when the family died."

"I expect father would find something, if you planned on marrying," Andoya said uncomfortably. "Are you planning on marrying?"

Senja sighed and shook her head.

"Not to anyone in our valley! But if a nice young man were to come walking into the hall and ask for me, I'd think about it!"

"Huh! And maybe if we get out to gathers more often, that might happen."

"So which one of your admirers will brave the walk over the pass to visit?"

Andoya laughed ruefully.

"I doubt if any of them will, Senja, but that will have to wait on events as well, won't it?"


	7. Chapter 7

Pern and the dragon riders are the copyright of Anne McCaffrey, but we do like to put our own characters and speculations in there as well.

Andoya remembered Sonja's laughing comments occasionally over the next days. The weather remained hot and dry, and the harvests were being gathered in, the barns filled with food for people and animals.

She took food and drink out into the fields, and her father paused by the stone wall to take a drink.

"Thanks, daughter."

"A good harvest, father?"

"Yes, one of the good ones. We'll keep going over to the next Turn." He looked down at her. "And you - are you helping out?"

"In the house, yes. And with Auntie Smola - she's not very well, father."

He frowned at her. "Not well? She's oldest in the hold, what would you expect?"

She stared at him through a blur of tears she winked away.

"I know she's old, father, but - isn't there anyone could come and see her?"

"A healer, you mean? There's no money for that sort of thing, daughter, not if the valley and the hold is to be kept together."

"You've held it together all these Turns - would a healer cost that much?"

He shrugged. "I don't know of any in the area."

"The Harper over in the next valley might."

"The Harper! He came through, and I gave him the right-about. All this learning about dragons is to do with the Pass, not the time after."

Andoya stared at him in shock.

"We - we - have to remember - and only the Harpers can teach it, father."

"Time enough when we get near to the next Pass for that nonsense. I sent him to Byrne, anyway."

He looked into the further reaches of the valley, frowning heavily. Andoya knew Byrne had begun planting trees in his section of the valley, to give firewood and building materials. When he took the whole valley, would he fill it with woods, she wondered, and scuffed a foot over the grass, thinking all the members of the hold would be out picking stones from the fields in that case. They had picked over these fields to give a greater depth of soil, and used the stones for the walls.

"Get back to the house, daughter," Danvik said now, turning away, and Andoya slung the water skin over her shoulder and walked back, using what shade there was under the cloudless sky.

"Goodness, you look as if you've quarrelled with someone!" Hitra said, studying her stormy face. "Your father, at a guess?"

Andoya drew a breath. "I asked him - if a healer could come - just to look at Auntie Smola - "

"Hah! And that would cost money! That man needs a shaking! Money! As if that's all there is about life."

"He's very careful, Hitra."

"He's stuck in the past," the cook snapped. "He wasn't even born when the last Thread fell, but he's taken on all those strictures as if it's coming again tomorrow."

"But we have to keep everywhere grass-free and - and - everything?"

"We still have to take care, yes of course we do, but he carries it too far! As if the dragons wouldn't protect us, anyway!"

"There's only one Weyr, Hitra. Will that be enough dragons?"

The cook hesitated, looking around the hot kitchens, and then back at Andoya's anxious face.

"They do say, before Thread, the Queens rise often and lay big clutches. More girls will be Searched."

"Has anyone been searched from this valley?" Andoya asked bitterly.

"Oh yes, in the last Pass. Living under the Weyr like we were, so my grandmother said, the dragon riders would come down and sometimes - um - take their pleasure. But it's true we don't look to Benden, so there's no need to think they'll be back looking."

She shook her head, gathering up some food and drink.

"Here, take these to old auntie, along with that never ending mending you always seem to be doing! Fifty turns since the dragons went."

"Was it this season?"

"Yes, so they say. Did you know Byrne has asked for a new Harper to come to his place?"

"Did he? Will the Harper come here as well?"

Hitra pursed her lips. "I doubt it. Your father wouldn't welcome him. We sing the songs, don't we, the teaching ballads and them honouring the dragon folk? No, I don't think we'll have a Harper, not even that nice man from the other valley!"

Andoya took the food and drink, and the inevitable basket of mending, and made her way to Auntie Smola's room, relieving her sister who told her she was late, and flounced out of the room.

Andoya moved around tidying, opening the window to get some air into the stiflingly hot room, gazing out into the courtyard. What would it be like, she wondered, to see a dragon land, have the riders come into the hold? Certain sure it would frighten all the beasts! The wild beasts out on the slopes of the abandoned Weyr had nothing to fear from dragons at the moment.

"Hot - thirsty - "

"I'm here, Auntie. Let me turn your pillow."

Her sister had not refilled the water jug, but Andoya fed the old lady patiently, and sat with her, listening to her rambling speech, trying to pick out anything about those far off days when Thread still fell.

"You'll have no young men coming, girl, tending me like this. They won't see you."

"That's all right, Auntie, there's plenty of time."

"Time. B'den said that. Plenty of time in my life, he said, and then he was gone."

"Was he a young man, auntie?"

"My age, yes, and he'd been coming down from the Weyr to visit my sister - bad girl that she was - I asked her if she'd let him, and she never would say."

"Your sister - my grandmother?"

"Arendal, I used to say, you'll come to a bad end, flirting with the boys. She just laughed at me."

Andoya stared at her in amazement. "Did - did grandfather know about it?"

"She wasn't wed to him then, of course. Did father know? He never mentioned it."

She lay back, staring out of the window, the breeze fluttering the dust in the sunbeams. There were no curtains in this room, just the solid wooden shutters Danvik insisted were closed and locked every night.

Andoya picked up her needle and thread and stitched at the mending, singing in a low voice that seemed to soothe the old lady; trying to remember the Harper's songs at the gather, the new songs he had sung to such pretty tunes, and from them she returned to the old, old teaching ballads. They had to sing them to remember, she thought, and wondered if the learning was written down anywhere. Perhaps in Harper Hall, where the youngsters would learn them. What would it be like, to be a Harper apprentice, to be able to get away from the endless mending that seemed to be all her task?

Someone knocked gently on the door, and Andoya blinked awake. She had fallen asleep over the mending, and now stood up hurriedly as Vikna looked around the open door.

"You all right, girl? I was in the courtyard and glanced in - "

"I was asleep," she said, on a blush. "It's so hot in here, Vikna, I'm sure it can't be good for auntie to be so hot."

He came in and stood looking around.

"Nice room, but like you say, too hot. She looks bad, girl."

"I know. Father won't get a healer in."

Vikna surveyed the old lady.

"Tell you what, if we moved the bed around she could get a breeze?"

"Father would know I'd opened the windows! He won't let any windows be opened!"

Vikna stared at her in surprise.

"Y'know, I never thought it. No, he won't let a window be open. Me, I sleep with the window open all night, all the time. Hmm. Let me think about it, maybe there's some way of cooling."

He looked around the room, at the scraps of food, and without being asked, gathered up the tray and the empty water jug and walked away, and Andoya was astonished to see him return with a full jug.

"There y'are, girl. Maybe you'll sit with me after supper a while?"

"I - I don't know - Vikna - "

"I ain't a bad man," he snapped. "I'm rough, but then I'm paid t'be rough. New moon tonight - maybe we'll go see the Red Star fading."

He left the room and Andoya stared after him, and Auntie Smola chuckled behind her.

"He's no nice-looking catch, girl, but I tell you what, he didn't get that gold on his clothes just from being a guard!"


	8. Chapter 8

Pern and the dragonriders are the invention of Anne McCaffrey, but I'm interested in the people who just might live between the words of the canon books. I do seem to be straying away from terminology in the books - sorry about that!

Andoya could not sleep. She had dozed in Auntie Smola's room during the long warm day, and now she came out of bed with a stealthy tread so as not to wake Senja. Carrying her outdoor shoes she hesitated in front of the heavy front doors. Her father would know at once someone had gone out at night, a heinous crime in his eyes, and she slipped down the corridor to Auntie Smola's room, opened the shutters and the window.

"Where you off to, Arendal? Meeting that man?"

She whirled around.

"No auntie. Just - outside - "

"Hmph. Give B'den a kiss for me and tell him I haven't forgot we're to dance at the next gather."

Andoya climbed out of the window, put on her shoes and ghosted around the edge of the courtyard and so out into the open.

As Vikna had said, Belior was at new, and stars filled the clear sky. Andoya made her way along the walls and fences and stood by the gates looking up at the looming bulk of the abandoned Weyr.

"He's up there," Vikna said quietly, and Andoya leaped around, stifling a shriek of surprise and fear.

"Who - who is up where?"

"Your madman."

"He's called Kvaloy," she said crossly.

"Oh ho! Found out all about him, did you, at that gather?"

"I know he goes out and about for his family, yes."

"Well, he's up there now. Been there all day, moving the wild beasts out of the Weyr."

"Moving them?"

Vikna opened the gate, and she came through, and they began walking.

"What did your auntie say about me?" Vikna asked abruptly.

"That you wore gold, and most guards do not."

He fingered his inlaid belt.

"And you wondered where it came from?"

"No, I did not. I know you aren't from the valley, you came in as a guard a Turn or two ago and stayed on."

"Your father hired me, yes. I got some gold put by, and there's a family home away near Fort Hold. When I've worked out my contract here, reckon I'll go back."

"And that's when you'll stop talking in that awful rough way?"

He laughed softly. "Maybe I will at that, girl. Now then - careful here - it's dark in these corners."

"Are there tunnel snakes?"

"They'll have run when they hear our footsteps. Now then - up here a bit - we can look down into the Weyr."

They came to the natural vantage point and looked into the darkened bowl. Firelight glowed from one of the big weyrs and a figure stood up near the Star Stones.

"He said he lived here," Andoya said doubtfully.

"I doubt it. I never saw him before this Turn. They reckon he's mad, do they, down in that valley?"

"Only because he's always talking about the dragons."

Vikna paused to look at her as they scrambled down the side of the Weyr.

"The dragons, eh? Fifty Turns, and they're still remembered?"

"Where did they go, Vikna?"

"I'd doubt it's so much _where_ they went as _why_, girl. They'd finished fighting Thread, they were settling down to live in peace - why is a better question."

"Why, then? Because they thought they were a burden?"

Vikna snorted as he led her across to the weyr with its glow of firelight.

"Lemme tell you what my grandad said about dragon riders! He reckoned they took what they wanted, and expected people to be grateful. During the Pass, that would be true, but afterwards - you know people, girl, would they go on being grateful and providing that extra tithe?"

Andoya frowned into the darkness.

"But what were they supposed to do - grow their own crops - in barren stone places like this?"

"Ah, there you've hit it, girl. My grandad didn't know the answer either. Here we are - my, my, is he brewing enough klah for an army, here?"

Andoya stared around in bewilderment at the kettles of klah kept warm near the fires, the bread and meat cut neatly into rounds.

"What's going on, Vikna?"

"We'll find out, girl, don't you fret. Let's go and find this madman of yours, eh?"


	9. Chapter 9

So - we are nearly at the end of our little sideways peek at the worlds of Anne McCaffrey!

Andoya followed Vikna up the steps to the heights of the Weyr where the Star Stones had been set at the beginning of men's realisation of the dangers of Thread. This way had been trodden by generations of dragon riders, she thought, some looking for the Red Star coming, some rejoicing as it passed. All of them vigilant and alert and dedicated. And then they had gone.

They reached the top of the Weyr and Kvaloy turned and saw them.

"What're you doing here?" he hissed angrily.

"Come to see what you're up to, madman," Vikna said in an insulting drawl. "No, don't start a fight, I'm armed, an' I can probably throw you off these heights."

"Why are you here, Kvaloy, and why all the klah?" Andoya asked as she came forward. "And why all the food? And you've driven the beasts out of the Weyr."

"They're safe," he said sulkily. "I've penned them securely."

"Wild, ain't they? Not anyone's branded goods, so they say?" Vikna asked, crossing to the Star Stones and squinting through them, moving his head to sight on the Red Star at its dwindled size. "So why don't you tell us, eh? We're not leaving until you do!"

"I'm waiting for the dragon riders," Kvaloy said after a moment spent considering them. "They're due back tonight."

"Back? Back from where?" Andoya asked in amazement. "Are they staying?"

Kvaloy shook his head as they descended from the heights to check the kettles of klah.

"Not really back," he said. "They're on their way to the future, to fight Thread at a time when no one believes it exists anymore."

"That's two hundred Turns in the future," Vikna said impatiently. "Before it returns."

Kvaloy glanced briefly at him, peering out into the starry sky.

"No," he said. "No, it's not going to happen like that, this time around. Twenty five Turns ago, I happened to be up here, hunting, and they arrived. They come every twenty five Turns, on their way into the future."

Andoya was stirring the klah, keeping it evenly warm, her mind busy on the implications of that.

"Just the dragon riders, or all their drudges as well?" she asked suddenly. "Auntie Smola talks about a cook from her young days, who vanished."

"Some of them went as well, I think," Kvaloy admitted. "I don't know, except they're pretty heavily laden when they pause to check their calculations on the Star Stones."

They stared at each other, and Andoya went to the mouth of the Weyr, in time to see the sky shiver across the stars as if something was out there, and with a blast of the coldest air she had ever felt, the sky and Weyr was full of dragons, landing, and someone leaped lightly down and came striding across, a man clad in leathers with a helmet thrust back, slipping off his leather and fur lined gloves.

"There you are! I recognise you, young Kvaloy - or no - of course you aren't young any more - is that klah? I'm parched!"


	10. Chapter 10

I hope you enjoyed this little flirt with the works of Anne McCaffrey - there are so many Turns for us to write about - fan fiction is a tribute to a well-loved author.

Andoya poured a cup of klah and brought it over. Vikna seemed too shocked to speak, looking from the rider to the dragon. The dragon sniffed at the smell before withdrawing its great head as another rider came in.

"What's this? Shells and shards, you kept your word then!"

He took a cup, ran his eyes appreciatively over Andoya who blushed and hurried away. She was searching for a rider in particular, for a dragon so pale bronze as to be almost golden, and saw what she was searching for, taking food and drink across.

"You - are you B'den?"

"Yes, I'm B'den, this is Simoneth my bronze. And who might you be - although - there's something about you - "

"I'm Adrenal's grand daughter," she said.

"Adrenal! Pretty little Adrenal, eh? How is my girl?"

"She - she died two Turns ago, sir, we had a very bad year."

His face showed his shock. "I - I - I should have realised everyone of my time would be dead - but only fifty Turns - "

"Smola is alive," she said quickly. "She said - she said - to tell you not to forget you're to dance together at the next gather."

He stared down at her, a tall well made man, his face suddenly sad.

"Alas, my dear Smola, it will be a gathering of the dead before I dance with you again," he murmured. "To me, it will be only sixteen more stops before I face Thread again, but everyone I held dear will be gone."

"Their descendants will be alive, sir! As will yours?"

He glanced beyond her to where Vikna was helping check buckles and harnesses.

"Yours and his as well, eh? Nice strong looking man, that one, and with gold! Well now - and there might be my blood in you, because Smola will have told you Adrenal and I sported?"

He laughed and shook his head, turned to check his harness, and Andoya hurried to pour klah and serve the dragon riders. They had lost two in the two jumps they had made, she learned, but most of the dragons were big and strong, well fed, and able to carry the burdens the dragon riders had brought with them, their possessions and their weyrmates in some cases. A woman was busy at the hearths, and Andoya walked across.

"Is it - is it - Alsten?"

The woman straightened and stared at her, wary and a little angry.

"Yes, I'm Alsten. Who wants to know?"

"Smola said your name - she said you'd come up here as cook and vanished."

Alsten's face softened.

"Smola! Oh my, but there was a girl! Did she wed the holder?"

"N- no. Adrenal did."

Alsten stared at her in puzzlement. "Adrenal? Oh, her sister! Smola would have been better, but I expect Adrenal manoeuvred her out of it. Did Smola marry?"

"Oh yes, and had three sons, all them gone out of the valley with their own families."

Alsten shook her head. "I came into this open-eyed, my girl, but it doesn't make it any easier. Now then. We'll be away in a short while, and thank you and that lad Kvaloy for the food and drink!"

"Will you - will you be back?"

"Oh yes, in twenty five Turns, following the dwindling and rising of the Red Star. Will you be here?"

Andoya glanced at Vikna who had come up to collect the empty cups, and blushed. Vikna smiled at Alsten.

"We'll be somewhere in one of these abandoned Weyrs, don't fret over that! Either this one or Fort, near my home. Together, I hope."

Alsten laughed out loud.

"I hope you are, my dears, and I'll remember you always, in that future we rush towards to save this world of ours! Now - give me a kiss, Smola's kin, and let me go."

Andoya kissed her, and stood back, and B'den came up behind her.

"Here," he said softly, holding out a gold locket. "Take this and give it to Smola. And give her this kiss from me, and tell her I'll look out her descendants in that far future, maybe take back my locket, eh?"

He kissed her on the cheek, saluted Vikna, embraced Kvaloya.

"Until the next time, brave one, if you are spared that long! Are you ready, Simoneth?"

The pale bronze dragon rumbled deep in his throat, lowered his head and touched briefly at Kvaloya, and B'den climbed to his back, and fitted on the fighting straps.

The three stood back, watching, and with a fierce upward hand signal, the Weyrleader and his mate took off, and winked out of sight, and the other dragons and their riders followed into the darkness, leaving the swirl of an unearthly cold behind them.

Andoya clutched the locket and Vikna ran an arm over her shoulders, blotting her tears.

"Come along, m'dear, let's get you back to bed before that ugly brute of a father of yours finds out about this little escapade! Are you fit to finish here, madman?"

"Yes. Thanks. For being here - "

"Give over, man, it was a privilege to be here! Something to treasure all my days, not to be spoken about, but known, eh, to us?"

Andoya nodded, cleared her throat and sang the song that had been new fifty Turns ago, and quickly added to the compulsory teaching ballads.

"_Gone away, gone ahead,_

_Echoes roll unanswered._

_Empty, open, dusty, dead._

_Why have all the weyrfolk fled?_

_Where have dragons gone together?_

_Leaving Weyrs to wind and weather?_

_Setting herd-beasts free of tether?_

_Gone, our safeguards, gone but whither?_

_Have they flown to some new Weyr_

_When cruel Threads some others fear?_

_Are they worlds away from here?_

_Why, oh, why, the empty Weyr ?"_


End file.
